


A Long-Forgotten Complication

by Pigeon_theoneandonly



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/F, Funeral, Heartbreak, canon character death, sometimes the past can haunt us for a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23161378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeon_theoneandonly/pseuds/Pigeon_theoneandonly
Summary: When she returns to the Citadel for a funeral, Karin Chakwas reunites with the woman she's tried to forget for twenty-five years.
Relationships: Karin Chakwas/Hannah Shepard
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Spectre Requisitions 2020





	A Long-Forgotten Complication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drladybird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drladybird/gifts).



They were never supposed to meet again.

The circumstances were made of such improbable stuff that when she realized her predicament, all Karin could do was laugh. Not in mirth. Indeed, there seemed very little to laugh about in the wake of the attack over Alchera. But in disbelief, that Hannah’s son should grow up to join the navy himself, that Karin should be ordered to serve in his command, and that his death should bring them both here, in mourning, to lay him to rest.

She debated whether to come at all. Surely Hannah had no desire for her company on this of all days, to say nothing of her ex-husband. But in the end, she chose to support her crew as their doctor, and as their friend. In truth, she needed the closure and catharsis as well. 

A murmur of hushed voices came through the hatch. On the Citadel, even large formal halls had airlocked hatches, ugly as they were, to seal down in case of emergency. Karin smoothed the dress one final time. Her formal uniform lay scattered in the _Normandy_ wreckage. This felt correct, anyway, not being a military occasion. She took a breath to gather her nerve, lifted her chin, and glided inside.

Hannah was as tall as her son; Karin spotted her immediately, halfway across the hall, not one strand of her graying brown hair out of place, updo smooth as a dove’s wing. She always did have the softest hair…

Someone grasped her arm. Karin blinked, coming back to herself. Greg Adams offered her an easy smile. “We’ve commandeered a few tables over this way.”

“Of course.” She let him turn her away, Hannah falling out of sight. Karin enjoyed people, and prided herself on being quite the conversationalist. Small talk came on autopilot. “The funeral was lovely, don’t you think?”

“It was a fitting tribute.” A grimace flashed over his mouth, gone as quickly as it came. “I’m not sure Shepard would’ve cared for it.”

“He’d never want all this fuss.” 

Rote, like they’d already had this discussion a million times before. And in a way that was true. Grief had a rhythm, rituals of mourning so deeply ingrained they barely recognized they were only mouthing words.

Karin bore silent witness to grief for so many people over the life of her career. Enough to see the patterns for what they were.

The _Normandy_ survivors gathered together in a corner, present by necessity, and trying not to attract any further attention after the enormous publicity of the rescue. Ash’s arm tucked in around Liara’s shoulders, both of them slumped together like tired stones coming to rest along a sandbar. Joker sprawled in his chair with a half-drunk warm beer. They barely looked up as Adams and Karin joined them.

She reached across the table. “Ashley.”

The young woman stirred with an air of waking up, and folded the offered hand into her own. Her grip strong and sure as ever.

Adams straightened in his seat. “Someone’s coming over.”

“Goddess, not another one,” Liara muttered, nearly too low for her translator to catch.

Karin turned. Hannah Shepard parted the crowd like a battleship, her heels clicking smartly against the floor.

Her sense of surprise came unexpected. Shepard’s piercing blue eyes never missed a thing; silly to expect any different of the mother who gave them to him. She rose unconsciously as Hannah came to a stop.

The rest of the crew around them murmured, confused. Karin was the only person who recognized her. She drew a breath. “Captain Shepard, I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

Everyone started a bit at that. But Hannah kept her eyes fixed on her. “I wasn’t sure I would see you here.”

And then the crew fixed on her, curious and faintly betrayed. “Your son was a wonderful man. It was a pleasure to know him.”

“He spoke of you fondly.” And just for a moment, her mouth thinned, nostrils flaring. Hannah’s infamous stoic calm faltered. Then it passed, and she widened her gaze to include the entire crew. “All of you. Thank you for being here. I understand it must be difficult.”

Ashley rose to fill the void. “No, ma’am. Your son died a hero. We’re all here because of what he did. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

Again that slight flex of her lips, followed by the sparest of nods. “Yes. Please, help yourselves to the buffet. We have enough to feed an army.”

Then she turned on her heel and swished away, before anyone could reply. 

Karin stayed another hour, drank a single glass of wine, hugged her friends and said her goodbyes.

* * *

Without a _Normandy_ to tend, Karin would up in the clinic gracing the Citadel’s Alliance outpost late that night and into the early morning. Not seeing patients— she wasn’t up for that— but lending what assistance she could. Perhaps it was inevitable that she ended up in maternity. Quiet and not remarkably large, and tonight, completely clear of all things morbid and tragic. A small department leftover from the early days of first contact when nobody knew anything about human anatomy.

There were no active labors. Just a handful of families, sleeping. The hours passed peacefully as the nurse made his rounds and brought her any notable results. A few medication adjustments, a few quick stops to look in on her charges. An evening without any thought required to allow her weary heart to rest on mindless paperwork.

Seeing Hannah again had felt inevitable since she first met Shepard and recognized her in him, and confirmed it through casual conversation. That it should happen like this… Karin struggled to balance her long-lived resentment against her empathy. She wasn’t one to fall in love easily. But Hannah drew her like a compass needle from her very first word. Funny and bold and energetic, all the things Karin herself was not. She’d lived for those emails, pouring out their hearts in paragraph upon paragraph, savoring every second together even if it was only a few minutes in passing when they docked at the same spaceport. 

And then Hannah was promoted. And Karin saw the picture in a navy newsletter. _Staff Lieutenant Hannah Shepard with proud husband Justin._ Shepard’s tragic death did nothing to alter that duplicity.

She sighed and pushed her stylus into the datapad, harder than was perhaps necessary.

“I searched this entire hospital for you.”

Karin looked up from her charting. She’d known when she heard her voice, but the actual sight of Hannah striding towards the desk sped her heart. She hated that her body still betrayed her like this. “This all feels very familiar.”

She put a half-empty wine bottle and a glass down on the counter. “What?”

“You having nothing better to do in the dead of night.” She couldn’t resist.

Hannah’s look was very tired. She poured. “I haven’t slept. Not since Anderson’s comm link.”

Rescue from Alchera came ten days ago. It was not a physical possibility. “I rather think there have been enough lies between us.”

“I fall unconscious now and again.” Hannah watched the wine aerate in the glass, giving it a swirl. “When my body gives out. But laying down and shutting my eyes… All I see is John.”

The last time Karin saw Shepard was the day before they lost the ship. He took a round in the arm during the Battle of the Citadel, and she was concerned about the development of the scar tissue. It seemed such a small worry now. “Would it hurt you if I said I miss him, too?”

She shook her head, not looking up. Took a sip. “I’m glad that he spent his final months with people who cared for him. The life he lived, what more could a mother ask?”

“Cynicism doesn’t suit you.” Karin watched her. “Sarcasm, however…”

The small chuckle was unexpected. She did glance up then, with a wry expression of jaded resignation. “Tell me, would it hurt if I said I miss you?”

And just like that, her defenses snapped back into place. She reactivated her datapad screen. “Don’t do that.”

“Funny. I thought twenty-five years might have bought me out of the doghouse.”

“You were married, and you didn’t tell me, for eight months.” Exasperated by still needing to have this argument. “You had a child for pity’s sake.”

“I’m not married anymore.”

“Yes, so your son mentioned.” Then, as Hannah blanched, she added, “I never said a word. Do you truly believe I would hurt him, damage your family, just for the satisfaction of wounding you?”

Those blue eyes peered at her. Karin shunted her gaze back to her notes, before they could pierce her through. It had been so jarring those first weeks aboard ship, seeing that same look every time she addressed her commanding officer. Hannah still had an inexplicable hold on her after all this time. Karin buried it with a small shrug, refusing to allow her to see anything. “So who was the unlucky homewrecker this time? Another lost soul you charmed at a shore-leave cantina?”

“Justin left me.” Her fingernail scratched a line into the soft plastic edging around the counter. “He wasn’t happy anymore. John was eleven and never forgave either of us.”

Karin’s mouth pursed. Then Hannah reached over, impulsively, and covered her hand with her own. “There weren’t any others. Only you.”

That flash of heat, skin on skin, threatened her composure and delayed her just a fraction of a second before sliding away. “I’m hardly flattered that I was the only one who drove you to betray your marriage.”

After a somewhat lengthy pause, Hannah took a rather larger sip of wine and said, derisively, “You don’t know anything.”

Karin ignored her. That only pissed her off more. Like her son in that way, as well. “You don’t how it was between Justin and me.”

She took a deep breath. “Hannah, why are you here?”

Hannah turned around. Leaning against the desk and staring at the elevator, the back of her French twist as elegant as when she first put it up that morning. “How did John die?”

All her irritation melted into compassion. This was more her field. “I don’t know. None of us do.”

She swallowed, audibly. “I understand John was… he was alone, on the ship, when it… when the asset was lost.”

“He sacrificed himself to save our pilot.”

“And… medically…”

“He may have been caught in the explosion.” Karin spoke gently, but there was no lessening the horror of it. Hannah was relentless and she knew well she wouldn’t stop asking. “If not, most likely asphyxiation. Either way, I doubt he was in pain for long.”

A small lie that wasn’t a lie. It was overwhelmingly likely that catastrophic trauma caused him to succumb quickly, or damaged his suit. If Shepard had survived intact… hypercapnia was only bad near the end. 

Hannah wiped at her face, her expression still hidden. Karin let her sit in that silence, processing. Funny, and painful, how her body language remained an open book. Several minutes later, Hannah sucked in a noisy breath through her nose. “Alright.”

Then she drained the glass, and turned back around to pour another. Calm.

“Why are you really here?” Karin asked again, abruptly. She ought to let it go. Hannah was grieving a child, and kindness permitted a few odd requests. But she was sore herself, and tired of sparring, and in no mood to cut into an abscessed wound.

“I beg your pardon?” More than a little frost, and also artifice. She’d been caught.

And Karin wasn’t about to let her off the hook. “Anyone could have told you what happened to your son. You spent hours searching for me.” 

Another swallow of the wine. “You never asked why I had the affair. You gave me a lecture I can still recall word for word, seeing as it was the harshest three sentences I’ve ever heard, and left before I could offer any rebuttal.”

Karin scoffed. “And you came all this way—”

“Yes, I lied to you. Yes, I cheated on John’s father.” She lunged forward, cupped her cheek in her hand and turned her face towards hers. Blue eyes, imploring, locked to green. “The moment I saw you, I felt something I didn’t believe existed outside of stories. Like falling into a storm.”

She started to pull away, but Hannah held her there, by the mere pressure of her palm and the power of her gaze. “I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t know what to do, or how to manage it. It was entirely without the premeditation you’ve assumed since you first saw that picture of Justin with me. But I was not about to let you walk out of my life as quickly as you entered it.”

Karin frowned, thinking. Hannah bit her lip. 

After nearly a full minute, for the third time and much more quietly, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“Because I have lost enough today.” Her thumb trailed along her jaw. Karin’s breath caught. “Because I have felt nothing since Anderson showed up at my door right up until you walked into the memorial this afternoon. Because when John wrote me I could tell he adored you, too, and I’d always wanted him to meet you.”

Her hand crept up and twined with Hannah’s fingers, still lying against her cheek. She closed her eyes. The smallest drop of water trickled from the corner. “I never had children.”

“But all the members of your crew were your children.” Hannah’s voice cracked. “I’ve heard you say it a thousand times.”

“I felt so terrible for you,” she said, the words spilling out without intention. “I wanted to write you, after, but…”

“I made a mistake.” Softly, and Hannah never spoke softly. “But that mistake wasn’t staying with you. It was not leaving Justin when I had the chance. It was lacking the courage to be honest with either of you. And I have never regretted anything more.”

Karin opened her eyes. Hannah’s face was wet. Her fingertips touched her tears, tremulous and a little astonished, that she had any for her on this of all days. For the life they could have had together, for the step-son they never shared. For the mistakes of younger hearts. 

She set their entwined hands down and gently let go. “Did you ever tell Justin?”

“Yes,” she answered, without hesitation. “After you left, that same night. Truth be told, I think he got over it more easily than either of us, but it was never the same.”

Karin kept her silence, for one minute, and then two, her mind a mess. Hannah seemed to be holding her breath.

Her heart was clear. Karin picked up her datapad, smiled, and said, “We’ll see.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to pushingsian for her beta reading skills!


End file.
